Letter by letter, these stories were born over several years. The process unlocked larger projects as well. In many ways, my redefining of hyperfiction comes from these first stories, tipping me back toward creative writing and not just writing.
It was a simple gesture on my part, beginning to write short stories. Remind my magical mind how it loves to play with creative language more than marketing language. AI was new to the picture and I was working for a large data center owner, the one's heating up the planet right now, and my mind was uncorked or something by the prompt > desired result > generate process.
I tapped my own brain for creative responses and generation from a photo, a song, a meme on Facebook, a trigger. Any little thing to set my own Large Living Language Model into action. Prompting and exploring the far reaches of my memories, dark crevices, happy times, loving times, and back to failure again. Something funny, uplifting, or clever needed to be sourced. That was the transformer. The humor, the wit, the twist of a word or letter to make a new meaning. By interleaving letters you make words which bloom into sentences into books like the one you're holding in your hand.
Start the process in your own mind. A little snippet of writing. A poem, a thought, a moment captured in vivid colors and emotions. The emotion is the part where the human mind is irreplicable. No generative algorithm can do what you and your mind does. The humanity of it all, if exposed and left vulnerable, is what gives human writing its magic.
